Market for paid inclusion search to reach $6 billion

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Innovation among companies hots up as ad pie swells. With experts projecting that the global market for paid inclusion Internet searches will reach more than US$6 billion (S$10 billion) by 2006, up from about US$2 billion last year, search engine companies are gearing up to duke it out for a chunk of the advertising pie.

Mr Sterling, program director at strategic research firm The Kelsey Group, senses a war brewing on the Internet.

Recent news reports have described the efforts of IT giants Yahoo! and Microsoft to gain a foothold in the market.

Both are trying to come up with next-generation search technologies to elbow past the current leader, Google, which now processes 80 per cent of all Internet searches.

Yahoo!, which now uses Google’s search technology, announced plans this month to ditch its partner in favour of technologies developed by Inktomi and Overture, companies recently bought by Yahoo!